BRC/IOP has been around for 10 year's so is quite a mature standard. My main gripe is the variance in standards, meaning I can visit a company with grade A they can be very poor and another who is excellent and every level in-between This is caused by auditor/cert body poor quality and lack of ethics/professionalism and partly because the customer is paying the auditor. The good thing now is BRC require auditors to submit audit reports to their database and everything is measured, they are also taking action and sacking fraudulent cert bodies (Nat Brit). For me the most important part of 3rd party certification standards is being able to trust their integrity. Otherwise we'll quickly return to myriad of customer audits and increased cost and drain on resources; and those who implement standards with good will and see them as a continual improvement tool will be unfairly punished.

Cheers,

Simon

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Best Regards,

Simon TimperleyIFSQN Administrator

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Choice made by the Group. The costs were mitigated due to integrated certification with ISO 9001 and 14001. Interest is not very high as we still get request from potential customers to be BRC or IFS certified.

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Best Regards,

Simon TimperleyIFSQN Administrator

Need food safety advice?Relax, you've come to the right place…

The IFSQN is a helpful network of volunteers providing answers and support. Check out the forums and get free advice from the experts on food safety management systems and a wide range of food safety topics.

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I'm an SQF Practitioner. I have been a food safety auditor for both AIB and C&T before ithey went to NSF. I also was a food safety consultant and auditor in my own business. Before becoming an auditor I was in the food industry in operations and quality as well as an owner operator of a canning plant. That was almost 20 years of experience.

To Simon's remark I have seen good and bad audits. I have seen announced and unannounced audits. The auditor to audit one seafood plant I was the QA manager of was assign the duty because of his closeness to the plant not his expertise in seafood. His background was in dary plants for 10 years.

We could be digging the food industry a bigger hole of credibility if the GFSI auditors are not diligent in their duties to record theprocess they are to audit.

I have helped 3 plants get to level 2 or 3 in SQF and if there is any issue it is the clarification on allergens, process, and Hazard Analysis. I seem to be explaining these items in the previous audits.

I have found mentors and confidants in the food industry to assist me. I have found this forum a good source of information when I lack it or a way to confirm my ideas. GFSI was to be the all encompassing audit framework without having additional 2nd and 3rd party audits in a year. In one position I had 9 audits in a year of which I paid for. I hope we do not go back to that program.

The only input GFSI have is benchmarking / approving standards against their protocol; it has no impact or influence on the quality, consistency or integrity of certification bodies or the auditors they employ. This job is down solely to the standards owners and relevant accreditation bodies.

Regards,

Simon

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Best Regards,

Simon TimperleyIFSQN Administrator

Need food safety advice?Relax, you've come to the right place…

The IFSQN is a helpful network of volunteers providing answers and support. Check out the forums and get free advice from the experts on food safety management systems and a wide range of food safety topics.

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I don't have all the answers and seeing as I can't submit only selecting 2 answers I can't participate unless I have time to ask my quality manager the other 2. However it is my belief that you should have just put SQF or put also SQF level 3. Just putting SQF level 2 forces me to put other rather than SQF.

It is my understanding that Level I in SQF is almost never used. I was told that in order to be considered GFSI certified it was required to be Level II or above. I am guessing that's why it doesn't have its own category.

Well the only problem I have with that is that level 2 and level 3 have different time lengths for the audits and therefore the costs will be different. It will give a skewed result for SQF in that way depending on how many people answer if they are SQF certified.

Yes 1 is barely ever used. Out of the three 2 is the most certified level I'm sure but level 3 encompasses quality in addition to food safety (level 2) and the audit is about twice as long.

The only input GFSI have is benchmarking / approving standards against their protocol; it has no impact or influence on the quality, consistency or integrity of certification bodies or the auditors they employ. This job is down solely to the standards owners and relevant accreditation bodies.

Regards,

Simon

Dear Simon,

Sadly, the misconception appears to be unstoppable. "GFSI Certification" will probably soon be in the dictionairies.

I don't have all the answers and seeing as I can't submit only selecting 2 answers I can't participate unless I have time to ask my quality manager the other 2. However it is my belief that you should have just put SQF or put also SQF level 3. Just putting SQF level 2 forces me to put other rather than SQF.

Just my observation.

Thanks,

Merle

Hi Merle,

Appreciate your point but it is a poll of food safety certification standards.

SQF, BRC favorites, customer and market pressure, can cost quite a lot to get going and a reasonable amount to maintain.

Sounds about right from my experience.

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Best Regards,

Simon TimperleyIFSQN Administrator

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Interests:"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them" Albert Einstein

Posted 07 April 2015 - 06:33 PM

At the company I'm currently at, there was a lot more emphasis and $$$ thrown at getting certified. Yes, the pressure was "getting certified" rather than producing safe quality food. As I've said in the past and will continue to say is that the hardest thing to change in a company is the culture my point in case follows: We well spent over $200K of changes we needed that I presented to the company after doing my review of the facility and going through the SQF system including some metal detectors and new chemicals we needed and adjustments in chemical usage and certifications. Now that we're at the recertification level their mentality is well we don't need to make any more investments because we're already certified. We didn't put any capital expense in the budget for "continuous improvement". WONDERFUL!!!...We won't come close to spending the initial amount on investment but we need to put $$$ towards some type of continuous improvement that I'll throw dollars at from what I find on the GMP audits.

At the company I'm currently at, there was a lot more emphasis and $$$ thrown at getting certified. Yes, the pressure was "getting certified" rather than producing safe quality food. As I've said in the past and will continue to say is that the hardest thing to change in a company is the culture my point in case follows: We well spent over $200K of changes we needed that I presented to the company after doing my review of the facility and going through the SQF system including some metal detectors and new chemicals we needed and adjustments in chemical usage and certifications. Now that we're at the recertification level their mentality is well we don't need to make any more investments because we're already certified. We didn't put any capital expense in the budget for "continuous improvement". WONDERFUL!!!...We won't come close to spending the initial amount on investment but we need to put $$$ towards some type of continuous improvement that I'll throw dollars at from what I find on the GMP audits.

That's the problem sometimes, you get certification and everyone assumes that it is job done. Maintaining certification and improving can become afterthoughts without some focus.

BRC was the European standard, but it has just become a commodity. I've found during my career that the better you are, the more auditors nit-pick with silly, debatable non-conformance's. I've visited BRC approved factories audited by the same certification body as my own and thought "how did these guys get an "A"?" Saying that, I've been relieved, as they have been consistent suppliers who supply at a good price. My documented reaction to a supplier dropping from an A to a B involved a lot of paperwork and follow-up audits and such first world problems. Who am I to rock the boat? Most important audit is the customer audit - whoever they may be, and whatever their standard is. Live for the moment - most of these customer audits are sub contracted, and the auditor will forget why they raised the non-conformance in the mists of time. Send them a jpeg of a kitten playing with some yarn and they will close it out. Just make sure it's a cute kitten, not one of those evil ones that look like Hitler.